(April 23, 2013 at 2:16 pm)Minimalist Wrote: with an hour long dissertation on why he thinks jesus is bullshit ( my words.)
(April 25, 2013 at 11:11 am)Drich Wrote: Just a reminder if you want to speak topically Minnie, we are discussing how your boy's arguement fails and how it mirrors every other fail arguement based on the avaiable 'facts' in the remaining roman record. Not biblical context.
Drich, it occurred to me upon further consideration that Minimalist's "summary" doesn't quite do justice to Dr. Carrier's presentation, or provide you with much of an incentive to take an hour out of your life to watch it. I hope you will watch it, as it contains much fascinating information even if you disagree with Carrier's main thesis.
Carrier is expanding on a theory of Christian origins advocated by a group of scholars including Robert M. Price, Earl Doherty, and Carrier himself as a recent "convert." This theory holds that the earliest Christians did not conceive of Christ as a man who had recently walked around in Galilee. Rather, he was a purely celestial deity whom early Christians experienced in visions, mystical revelations (comparable to what we now call "channeling"), and esoteric modes of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus was a specific type of divine intermediary between the wholly numinous spiritual realm and the earthly realm, most commonly referred to as the Logos.
"Logos" is a Greek word with numerous interrelated meanings. Most Bibles translate it as "Word" (as in the preamble to the Gospel of John), but it can also refer to a harmonizing proportion ("ratio" in Latin). It is the root word for "logic" and "logarithm," and its Latin counterpart is the root of the word "rational." The Logos was viewed as the "divine intelligence" that bridged the gap between divinity and the physical world, and was intimately involved in the creation of the Cosmos. In Hellenistic thought, pure Divinity was inherently separate from matter, so a transitional figure was needed to integrate the two realms. In Pythagorean thought, the presence of such a figure was thought to be evident through an integration of sacred geometry, the tonal structure of music, and astronomy/astrology ("the music of the spheres").
The Roman world at that time had a number of different versions of this theology, commonly known as the "Mystery Schools." These "Mystery Schools" re-interpreted different local theologies and mythologies into the structure of their own theology. Usually (but not always) the Logos was cast as a savior god who descended from the heavens, died, and returned to life. Examples include Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, and Inanna. These religions originally had an agricultural and community focus, with the deity's descent, death, resurrection, and ascension representing the seasons of the year, and communal worship aimed at assuring fertility for crops, livestock, and people. The Mystery Schools transformed these religions by changing the focus toward individual salvation and enlightenment.
Dr. Carrier presents evidence that early Christianity was the Jewish version. Some of the evidence he presents was already familiar to me, but he cites some fascinating information from other scholars showing how the Gospels were carefully and ingeniously crafted as meta-parables about Christ, rather than cobbled-together accumulations of oral tradition and legendary embellishment as most New Testament scholars presently maintain. He provides examples of how the stories and miracles were carefully arranged on both sides of a "pivot point" in the narrative, so that stories and miracles on one side mirrored those on the other, to reinforce the theological points the authors were making. One example Carrier gives is where the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 7:14 is cited ("...and she will call him Immanuel"). This is odd from a straightforward perspective, because Mary does not name him Immanuel, and no one else does either. However, the other side of the chiastic structure of the Gospel (Matthew, IIRC) is the point where Jesus, after his resurrection, tells his disciples that he will "be with them" ("Immanuel" = "God with us") unto the end of the age.
In addition, the Gospel stories were crafted precisely to supplant the Hebrew Scriptures, placing Jesus as a superior archetype of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, the Jewish sacrificial system and Temple, etc.. This is in keeping with the Hellenstic world view that was popular at the time. In this world view, things on Earth were imperfect copies of perfect archetypes in the Heavenly realms. This metaphysical viewpoint is spelled out directly in the Book of Hebrews.
So, the ancient Hebrew stories could be seen as shadows of the workings of the celestial Jesus in the Heavenly realm (think: Plato's Cave). This is why, when Paul describes the "biography" of Jesus, he keeps saying "according to the Scriptures" rather than referencing any passed-on traditions about a human Jesus who lived recently on Earth.
In summation then, Carrier argues that Jesus was not a historical figure because the authentic early Epistles speak of a celestial deity, and the ingeniously-engineered structure of the Gospels is evidence of deliberate literary craftsmanship, rather than compilation of oral tradition and legendary embellishment of historical remembrances of a human man.
